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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (March 15, 1996)
just out ▼ march 15, 1086 ▼ 7 ru news “Don’t ask” at two “D on’t ask, don’t tell” has hit the terrible twos. To “celebrate,” the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network released its second report on that failed policy at a Feb. 27 news conference in Washington, D.C. The report “reveals a continuing pattern o f abuse that has effectively rendered the current policy as bad as, if not worse than, its predecessors,” declared SLDN. During the first full fiscal year in which it was in effect (fiscal year ’95, which ended in September 1995), 722 people were discharged under the policy. That number is a four-year high. The Pentagon has admitted to spending at least $21 million in pursuing these discharges. SLDN has documented 703 abuses, including 28 “witch hunts,” both stateside and at overseas bases. The abuses represent “blatant disregard o f the policy’s limits” during the two years of the policy. Three hundred sixty-three o f them occurred in the last year alone. Some o f the abuses led to discharges, others did not. The Air Force has become the most aggressive branch in pursuing homosexuals. It now “accounts for 32 percent of all gay discharges,” but only 26 percent o f total active duty personnel. Discharges . re down in the Navy and have held steady in the A.-my and Marine Corps. SLDN cited a 1994 Air Force memo that “in structs inquiry officers to question parents about the sexual orientation of their children,” as well as an August 1995 Department o f Defense memo by General Counsel Judith Miller that “greatly expands the scope o f investigations beyond the original intent and letter” o f the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Charges o f homosexuality continue to be “used as a means o f retaliation against anyone, regardless o f their sexual orientation,” the report states. But such charges are particularly used as a weapon against the growing presence o f women in all ser vices. Only 13 percent o f military personnel are female, yet women constitute 21 percent o f all discharges and 30 percent of the cases SLDN has investigated. The group cited one example o f a private sta tioned in Korea who “reported that male soldiers assaulted and threatened to rape her, then spread false rumors that she was a lesbian.” Her com mander chose to investigate the latter insinuation rather than the assault. Only a vigorous defense, and perhaps a change in command, brought the Army to drop its discharge proceedings. SLDN cautioned that its report is but the tip of the iceberg of anti-gay discrimination under “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Many of those harassed or dis charged never contact the organization. Others are removed through less aggressive means, such as denial o f re-enlistment. The front page of the report carried a dire boxed warning to service members who come under inves tigation. It urged them to say nothing and get legal help: “Saying or doing the wrong thing.. .could get you thrown in jail.” The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network consider the two of you as a couple, even if the IRS won’t. coordinates legal assistance for those in the military threatened with charges o f homosexuality. It is based in Washington, D.C., and can be reached at (202) 328-3244. Bottoms down Sharon Bottom s’ losing struggle to maintain custody o f her young son will become a made-for- TV-movie. Valerie Bertinelli will play Bottoms in the ABC movie For Love ofTyler. V anessa Redgrave has been signed to play the elder Bottoms, Kay, who won the legal battle and is raising her grandson. The movie will recount how the toddler was taken from his mother because her lesbian relation ship with April W ade would, as the Virginia court ruled, bring “social condemnation” to the child. No date for airing the movie has been set. Serial killer stalks Tidewater, Va. Naked, strangled, the bodies o f young men are being dum ped beside isolated roads and cul-de- sacs in the Tidew ater region o f southeastern V ir ginia. It is like the slow drip-drip-drip o f a C hi nese water torture: 11 bodies in nine years. Eighteen-year-old C harles F. Sm ith was first. A school bus driver found him in a ditch on July 17, 1987. The m ost recent, Jesse Jam es Spenser Jr., 30, turned up on Jan. 27. According to som e reports, which police are unw illing to com m ent on, m any but not all o f the victim s show ed evidence o f recent activity as the passive partner in anal sex. N obody saw a pattern at first but finally last sum m er, with m urder No. 10, it becam e official. “At this point we are considering all 10 hom i cides to com e from the hands o f a serial killer,” said police spokesm an T ony Torres o f C hesa peake County, the epicenter o f this grim harvest. “All were know n to have sim ilar lifestyles and w ork h ab its...all were know n to associate with the gay com m unity.” “A ssociate” is an interesting word. T he victim profile that has em erged is one o f men at the m argins o f society and also o f the gay com m unity. They are low -skilled, often part-tim e hustlers, not know n at gay bars or com m unity organizations. Several fam ilies have denied their sons and broth ers were gay. In fact som e o f the victim s probably d id n ’t even think o f them selves as gay. “Clues have been alm ost nonexistent,” says Henry Edgar, editor o f Out & About, a local monthly gay newspaper. “ [The police] don’t know w here they were picked up o r killed. There is no indication o f any kind o f struggle or surprise.” There is no tem poral cycle to w hen the killings occur, nor even com m on physical characteristics to the victims. They range in age from 18 to early 40s. “A couple o f guys w ere pretty stockily built, a couple were thin,” says Torres. Four were black, seven white. A utopsies often revealed drug or alcohol use, but not to a suffi cient degree to im pair judgm ent. The gay com m unity reacted with “fear and consternation” when rum ors o f a serial killer first began to circulate, says Steve Stone, a gay re porter with the Virginian Pilot, the m ajor daily new spaper in the region. But that was several years ago. The fear abated as m ore inform ation about the victim s becam e know n, “as people [began to] see the victim s as being very m ar ginal.” K athleen V ickery, ed ito r o f Our Own, a m onthly gay and lesbian new spaper serving T ide water, describes it as “ H o-hum , here are some m ore low -incom e, drug-using, hustling kinds o f people who are getting m urdered, so big deal.” And so the killer waits to strike again. Perhaps next time leaving clues which will allow police to crack the case. Reported by Bob Roehr Portland’s Largest Selection of Recumbents All 1995 models now at reduced cost OPEN TUESDAY-SUNDAY 230-7723 2025 SE H aw thorne H I V P O S IT IV E ? The Russell Street Clinic at Oregon Health Sciences University needs HIV participants for an oral health care research project to study the overall health effects of regular dental care for people with HIV. For more information, call: 494-6300 Lesbian & gay couples face special challenges with their tax returns. 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